


Jade Through My Teeth

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [56]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DC Extended Universe, DCU (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Feelings Realization, Invasion of Privacy, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 22:16:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14963199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Batman doesn’t knock. Neither, it turns out, does Bruce Wayne.





	Jade Through My Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I need you to come here right now and clean up your doo-doo. Prompt from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).
> 
> ETA: Now with a beginning, middle, and end, damn it. I just couldn't leave these two hanging.

Batman doesn’t knock. Neither, it turns out, does Bruce Wayne.

“What the _heck_ ,” Clark says, coming to a screeching halt outside his bedroom door.

“Nice to see you, too,” Bruce says dryly.

He’s sitting at the foot of Clark’s bed, looking for all the world like this is totally normal, like he makes a habit of popping in on some random, blessedly crisis-free Tuesday and making himself at home in Clark’s personal (read: private) space. Oh, god, Clark thinks, gripping the towel around his hips tighter. He doesn’t, does he?

“Do they not have doorbells in Gotham?” Clark manages. “Or cell phones? Some way of asking permission before you just flipping barge in?”

“You can hear heartbeats, Kent. I figured you’d hear me coming from a mile away.”

“Well, yeah, but only if I’m listening for it. I can’t keep those aural doors open 24/7. My head would explode. There’d be brain melting, probably.”

He doesn’t have as much practice reading Bruce Wayne as he does the Bat, but there’s something slippery in Bruce’s expression, something that reads like Wayne is finding all of this extremely entertaining. Which only adds to the surreality of the evening.

“Well,” Bruce says, spreading his hands, “forgive the faulty assumption. Next time I’ll know.”

Clark reaches for his dignity and finds only white terrycloth. “What do you want? I assume that it’s urgent. Life or death. Fate of the known worlds or something.”

“Why would you assume that?”

“Why the hell else would you be in my bedroom at 10:30 at night?”

“Oh,” Bruce says casually, “is it that early?”

He leans back and the perfect lines of his suit lean with him, dark charcoal with a white shirt and an open collar, a slight pressure mark at his throat that says he wore a tie today, had one on for hours, but has just recently taken it off. He was aiming for less formal, Clark thinks, for an air of nonchalance, which is...bizarre. Who is he trying to convince that this conversation, these circumstances, are not incredibly weird? It’d better be himself, because Clark is not buying it. No sir.

“Bruce,” Clark says, shades of his Superman voice, the one that makes their enemies tremble, that’s been known to make Darkseid flinch. “What’s going on?”

“I was at a party tonight,” Bruce says. He finds Clark’s eye, holds it. “For the Gotham Library Foundation. Barbara used to work there. We give them a big check every year.”

Clark crosses his arms. Wills his towel not to budge. “Uh huh.”

“It was downtown, at their main branch. It’s got a beautiful atrium. Built in the beaux arts style in the ‘20s.”

“I know you didn’t come all the way out here to lecture me on Gotham’s architectural heritage.” His voice is sharper than he’d meant, colder, and this time, Bruce does look away, the tips of his ears going pink.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m getting there.” He clears his throat. “There was a smattering of press, nothing special, but a few out of the way cameras were there doing their annual ‘Is Bruce Wayne Really a Decent Fella or Actually a Gigantic Cad’ number. I didn’t think anything of it.” His gaze zeroes back in on Clark. “And then I saw you.”

“Me?” Clark says. “No, you didn’t. I’ve been here all night.”

Bruce makes an annoyed sound. “I know that now, Kent, but I didn’t then. I don’t keep track of your daily schedule.”

“Bullshit,” Clark says, emboldened. “You keep track of everybody’s schedule, Bruce. Or you have some algorithm thing that does it.”

And then Bruce does something that makes Clark feel like they truly are through the looking glass: he laughs. Not some fake sounding society chuckle or rapacious playboy sneer--no. He can’t be sure because he’s technically never heard it before, but this laugh sounds like the real thing.

“Fair,” Bruce gets out, “that’s totally fair. But my algorhythm thing is only meaningful if I actually read what it spits out every morning, which I don’t always do.”

“Oh my gosh,” Clark says, “where’s my pen? I have to write this down because no one will believe that the Batman had a slip.” He’s grinning, though, because it’s impossible not to; he’s never seen Bruce’s face so open, seen him look quite so--human. Granted, he’s only seen him without the mask a few dozen times all told; even when they’re alone on some rooftop or somewhere out in space, Bruce tends to keep the mask on, and tight. He kind of wishes he did have a camera, or his iPhone, because no one in the league is ever going to buy this on his word alone.

Bruce draws in a breath, holds up a hand. “So,” he says, “let me rephrase: I _thought_ I saw you, Clark, on the other side of the party. Your back was to me and this gorgeous redhead was on her tiptoes, whispering in your ear. She had her arm around you and you had your arm around her and I thought--my first thought was, why is Kent here? My second, who the fuck is this girl? My third? Less a thought than a feeling, one that sank like jade through my teeth.” He stops talking, said teeth finding his bottom lip.

Something in Clark stumbles. “What feeling was that?”

Bruce’s eyes are dark diamonds, fierce and beautifully flawed. “Jealousy.”

“You--what?”

“Then you turned around and it wasn’t you, I could see that, but that goddamn feeling wouldn’t go away. Seemed fucking determined to stay. And so I set down my champagne and said my goodbyes and brought the jet out here to see you.”

There are a thousand thoughts in Clark’s head, none of them especially coherent, so all he can kick out is:“Why?”

Bruce gets up, takes the room in two steps, and it’s supposed to be suave, he is, but there’s something in his movements, in his face, that belies all of that, every drop. “Because I don’t understand,” Bruce says, nose-to-nose, “why the fuck I could possibly feel that about you, and I was hoping”--two fingers on his arm, running up towards his bicep, “you could help me figure that out.”

The touch is a question, Clark thinks, forcing himself not to shiver as Bruce’s nails stretch over his skin. One posed so that Clark’ll give Bruce the answer--a kiss, maybe, or a shove back towards the bed, or _get the hell out of here_ smack. So that he’ll make the decision for them both. This whole thing, this casual B  & E, it’s act of submission dressed up as boldness: sure, Bruce’s been the first to say something, to give voice to the thing that’s lain unspoken between them, always--but he wants Clark to have the last word.

It’s the damnedest thing.

Bruce Wayne may not knock, but he sure as heck wants Clark to be the one to unlock the door and let him in.

Well. It’s not that Clark doesn’t want to. He’s heady from it already, Bruce’s proximity, from only this hint of a caress; his whole body is humming, like there’s an electrical current just under the surface, like his blood’s been replaced by the sun. He’s made a point of never dwelling on it, what it might be like to have Bruce close to him like this, to have those agate eyes softened just a touch, just for him. Wanting Bruce was like playing football when he was a kid; he knew he couldn’t do it, couldn’t have it, so why waste time and energy and the fleeting beauty of life with his mind stuck someplace his body could never go?

He’s always figured that Bruce felt it, too, that pull that always kept them together even when they were at each other’s throats. There was something more than friendship between them, something more like a tension, and maybe that’s what made the League work, what helped to bind everybody together: Batman and Superman, tugging on opposite ends of the same string.

There’d been a time, years ago, after they thought Jason had died, when he’d come close to reaching out, to laying his hand over the shaking fingers still concealed in the Batman’s glove and saying _Please_. _I’m here. Let me. Please._ But something had held him back--Bruce’s grief, maybe, the depths of his own sadness, the guilt that hung in the air, heavier than any funeral shroud. Whatever it was, the moment had passed and he’d watched it, made no move to grab it. Had never found his way to reach for Bruce’s hand.

And until tonight, Bruce had never reached for him, either, had given no real sign that this was what he wanted, too.

Still, Clark thinks, biting back a smile, that was no reason to make it easy.

He shoots Bruce an eyebrow. “You’re the World’s Greatest Detective,” he says, arch. “You figure it out.”

Bruce chuckles and he’s so close, so, that Clark can feel how it crests in his chest, how it rattles his heart.  “Detection,” Bruce says, “is all about the external. It’s about paying close enough attention to everything that is not you, every element of your environment, so that you can read it correctly.” His fingers trace the curve of Clark’s shoulder, the warm swell of skin there. “Introspection, on the other hand, self-exploration? That’s not my forte. Gets in the way of the work.”

Clark keeps his arms at his sides, fighting back the roaring desire to touch. “Hence you flying 700 miles to get me to explain your feelings to you, huh?” he says. “Feelings that most people would either write off or repress or gods forbid, actually do something about.”

A soft sound. “This is me doing something.”

“What is it that you’re doing, then?”

“I have my hand on your skin. Not something I do every day.”

“Uh huh,” Clark says. “Color me unimpressed.”

That gets him a look, a sharp snap of Bruce’s eyes. “Is that so?”

Clark shakes his head, makes his face aim for rueful. “Bruce, I’m standing here wearing only a very forgiving but not infallible towel and you’ve chosen to devote your attention to...my shoulder? I mean”--he shrugs, just to feel Bruce’s grip slip--“I’m no expert in seduction, but come on.”

Bruce strangles a growl and his hand tightens, the other suddenly a force at Clark’s hip. “I’m not trying to seduce you, Kent. Believe me, if I were, you’d know.”

“Well then,” Clark says. “What are you doing, exactly?”

“I might be trying to kiss you if you’d shut up for two seconds.”

Oh, Clark thinks. Sometimes it’s too easy.

“Really?” he says to Bruce. “Then why don’t you make me?”

He gets a Polaroid flash of Bruce’s face pulled up hungry and then Bruce’s mouth is on his, luxurious and demanding and he feels, he feels with every fiber of his form that this is a gift, that Bruce is; that no matter how furious his tongue or how desperate his hands, this is Bruce at his most fragile, the most easily broken. Something in Clark’s heart aches for him, can see the color Bruce is letting bleed outside of the lines, and he know this isn’t a Bruce Wayne that many people have the privilege to see. One wrong word, one wrong look, and Clark’s sure that he’ll startle, wing his way out of Clark’s arms and back into the night.

So he’s careful, Clark is. Gentle even when he’s shoving Bruce’s coat from his shoulders and tearing inelegant at his shirt. When he’s picking Bruce up with no warning and driving him back towards the bed and winding himself on top of him, biting kisses into his throat, echoing each and every groan. When he tugs off his loyal towel and grabs Bruce’s hand and yanks it down, curls Bruce’s fist beneath his and guides a dozen strokes, wet, before he opens Bruce’s carefully tailored trousers and and yanks them hard down his hips.

“Oh fuck,” Bruce gets out, his whole body lifted in a hard, anxious arch as he kicks off his shoes, worms his way out of his pants. “Fuck please, Clark. Please for the love of god tell me that you’re not a tease.”

Clark laughs, tucks the sound against Bruce’s ear. “Don’t give me any ideas.”

Bruce claws at his neck and Clark can hear him smiling, the rough turn of his lips unmistakable. “Mmmm," he says. “Maybe next time.”

Clark tumbles off of him and they wind together on their sides, legs tangled, breathing into each other’s faces as they find each other, get a fistful, and stroke. Bruce tucks an arm beneath Clark’s head, between he and the pillow, and the low sigh he makes when Clark leans into him is almost enough to send Clark up to the stars.

“I want your mouth on me,” Bruce says in a voice Clark’s never heard before, the equal and counter opposite of Batman’s mechanical growl. “I want your mouth on me and then I want you to come inside of me. Want to feel your spunk drip between my thighs, Clark. Wanna watch you lick it up.”

A jolt, something like swallowing lightning, and he moves his hand faster, even as he feels Bruce’s start to stutter. Whispers: “Only if you have a hand in my hair. Only if you’re holding my head so you can put my mouth where you want it. So you can show me where you want my tongue.”

Bruce shudders, a kitchen curtain in the wind. “Want you to taste what you’ve done to me.”

“Yeah?” Clark ducks his head and finds Bruce’s mouth. Lingers there until they’re both gasping. “And what is it that I’ve done?”

“Made me come,” Bruce pants. “Made me feel so good I lost it, couldn’t help it, I--fuck, Clark, I can’t--”

His body, that beautiful, immovable thing, goes hot water in Clark’s arms, in his fist, and when Bruce lets go, it’s like falling, the earth rushing up to meet sky. He sings with it, the fall; throws his head back and gives up noise after grateful, aching noise as Clark pulls him through it, the sticky heat of his release caught between them, a shared splatter over their skin, and when he lifts his eyes and finds Clark’s, there’s a warmth there, an ease, an unabashed sense of need that pushes Clark right to the edge.

And then Bruce clutches Clark’s wrist and brings the mess to his mouth, smears his lips with Clark’s fingers, his own spunk, and whatever control Clark’s clung to all these years, all those nights, disappears in the blink of an eye.

When he comes, Bruce mirrors his groan, tucks his sticky mouth against Clark’s and kisses him through it, drinks up every last whine, every sigh, every sound of Clark’s relief.

“You come that much every time?” Bruce says later, when they’re back on this side of coherent.

“Mmmm. I guess. More or less. Been a while, though.”

Bruce spreads his fingers through the mess. “Since you came?”

Clark’s cheeks heat. “Since, ah, I had help.”

Bruce laughs and Clark pulls him closer so he can feel that sound, taste it. “Come on. Clark Kent isn’t celibate, is he?”

“No,” Clark says. “Just picky.”

A palm on his cock, the hint of a fist. “Huh. Not that picky, apparently.”

“Hey, it’s been a long time. And you feel really, really good.”

Bruce nips at Clark’s lip. “Yeah? How good?”

“If you have to ask, Bats,” Clark deadpans, “then I can’t help you.”

He’s shifting his hips lazy, working his cock in Bruce’s hand and Bruce Wayne is smiling at him, this genuinely pleased little thing. “I wish,” Bruce says through that smile, “I wish we’d done this years ago.”

Clark kisses him, licks around the warm, bitter taste of his mouth. “Well,” he murmurs. “We’re here now. Unless you have to jet off to sit on towers or something. I’d understand if you’d rather stare at your city than at me.”

Bruce huffs a laugh, squeezes gently at the shaft. “Maybe tomorrow,” he says. “But tonight, Kent, I’m all yours.”

“Tonight,” Clark says dreamy, “and tomorrow. And the night after that. Even when you’re not touching me, Bruce, when my hands aren’t on you--you’ll be mine.”

Their lips meet again, the tips of their tongues, and in between kisses, Clark hears Bruce’s heart whisper it: _Yes. Yes._

**Author's Note:**

> ...how I got from that prompt to this fic, I do not know.


End file.
